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Immigration Canada snafus causing ‘a lot of misery’

Newcomers to Canada are paying the price for bureaucratic bungles, including a new visa with an old expiry date and documents lost in the mail. First in a two-part series on those trapped in a system that seems to have little compassion.

Migrants and their Canadian spouses caught up in the sponsorship backlog protested recently in front of Immigration Minister Chris Alexander's constituency office in Ajax. (INLAND SPOUSAL SPONSOR GROUP)

Toronto resident Bashar Kassir's sponsorship application for his parents in war-torn Syria was denied last August because officials said he had failed to respond to letters the family claims it never received. The file was finally reopened after his story appeared in the Star in October. (NICHOLAS KEUNG / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

A foreign student from India got a new student visa — with an expiry date that had already passed.

A Jamaican man got an official notice that his immigration application was being processed. Months later, he was told his incomplete package had been returned to him a long time ago — and nobody knows where his file is now.

A man is facing deportation to China after his application for a spousal sponsorship was rejected because he hadn’t responded to requests for more documentation. He and his lawyer insist they never got such a letter.

These are among a slew of cases in which would-be immigrants have paid a hefty price for screw-ups by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, according to critics and immigration applicants.

Their stories seem to back up the findings of a recent internal review that found such errors aren’t uncommon in Canada’s bureaucracy, leading to “unfairness for clients.”

De Wei Gao, 48, is facing deportation to China after immigration officials claimed he failed to respond to demands for further documentation in letters both he and his lawyer insist they never received.

In November, De Wei Gao, 48, of Toronto, received an emailed rejection letter on his spousal sponsorship claiming he had failed to respond to requests for his passport and police clearance documents back in April 2014.

“We never received any letter about this request,” said lawyer Avvy Go, of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. “This case is even more ridiculous because we did not even receive the refusal letter, although it was addressed to ‘the client c/o the clinic.’ The only letter I ever received was when they rejected my request to reopen Mr. Gao’s case.

“The government’s internal reviews explain a lot. It is unacceptable that applicants have to bear the consequences for someone else’s mistakes. These mistakes are causing a lot of misery for a lot of people. These clerical errors can be easily remedied, but the system is so inflexible.”

Immigration officials at the case processing centre in Vegreville, Alta., did not respond to Go’s request for a copy of the missing correspondence and refused to reopen the case. After threats of taking the case to court, the immigration department agreed to reconsider Gao’s application.

The Vegreville processing centre was among the immigration operations that came under the microscope of the government’s quality management reviews.

Officials examined 996 files processed between Nov. 1 and Dec. 6, 2013, in Vegreville — which deals with permanent residence applications — and found human error issues in 617 request letters sent to applicants, according to the department review.

Staff failed, for example, to use correct form letters, to address the problem of missing documents and to give applicants accurate timelines, according to the review. Of 426 files that received a second review during the five weeks, decisions were pending for 149 owing to errors made by decision-makers at an earlier stage.

Despite those findings, Citizenship and Immigration Canada insists the system is sound and its integrity is not compromised.

“CIC is focused on making our application processes and our correspondence with clients simpler and clearer,” said department spokesperson Sonia Lesage. “We have moved to a system of ensuring perfected applications are handed in at the beginning of the process.”

Damaris Garzon, author of the ebook Thou Shalt Not Marry a Foreigner, said the immigration system is plagued by inconsistencies and lacks accountability to the public. She is seen with her husband, Justin Gilbertson.

While researching and interviewing immigrants for her book, Thou Shalt Not Marry a Foreigner, Garzon found that applicants are often misinformed.

“A couple got this letter from immigration in November 2014 about their spousal sponsorship and the letter said inland processing of applications now takes an average of 28 days,” said Garzon, 35, a native of Barcelona married to a Canadian from British Columbia.

“I don’t know where they got the 28 days from. (The department’s) own website says the process currently takes 17, 18 months. Immigration is supposed to send out an AOR (acknowledgement of receipt) to applicants when they get the application. Again, they don’t always do it.”

The federal government has denied the Canada Employment and Immigration Union’s suggestion that its frequent use of casual employees and lack of training are causing the errors.

An immigration department spokesperson said the move to a system of ensuring “perfected applications” are handed in at the beginning of the process has eliminated some of the problems.

“With this practice, we have been able to identify missing or invalid information earlier,” the spokesperson said.

“This has helped to make huge gains in efficiencies at other processing centres, as it allows us to communicate with applicants in a more clear and timely manner, therefore streamlining the process. It is in line with changes we have made in other offices in our global network.”

However, those changes have not helped when it comes to detecting and correcting errors, said Sampan Singh, a foreign student enrolled in the technology management program at Winnipeg’s Red River College.

Sampan Singh, a student from India, received a new visa with the same expiry date as his old one. He was forced to miss a term of college while waiting for the problem to be corrected.

In November, the 28-year-old from India applied to extend his student visa. He was stunned when his new visa arrived over Christmas and the expiry date was the same as that of his old visa: Jan. 1, 2015.

“When I finally got through to immigration on Jan. 5, the agent on the phone said they’d rectify the error as soon as possible,” said Singh. When he didn’t hear back from them, he was forced to stop going to class.

“I’d be breaking the law without a (valid) student visa,” he said. “My family paid $11,000 for my tuition. I’m missing this term and won’t be graduating on time. I’m screwed.” Singh took his story to the media before immigration officials responded and corrected the problem.

Toronto resident Bashar Kassir’s sponsorship for his parents in war-torn Syria was denied last August because officials said he had failed to respond to letters the family claimed it never received. The file was finally reopened after his story appeared in the Star in October.

However, his father died of a heart attack before he made it to Canada and now his widow, a dependant on the sponsorship, has to reapply for a new visa.

Immigration officials told Camillio Senior of Jamaica, seen here with Canadian wife Christine Villaman, that they had had returned his incomplete sponsorship application weeks before he got a letter acknowledging receipt of the package.

Camillio Senior and his Canadian wife, Christine Villaman, were thrilled when they got an Immigration Department letter on Aug. 7, 2014, acknowledging receipt of his spousal sponsorship application, submitted last March.

Senior, 29, said he called Immigration regularly for updates on his file and was shocked when he learned from an agent in early January that his application had been returned to him on July 14, 2014, because it was “incomplete.” He said he had neither changed his address nor received the returned application.

“How is it possible that they sent my application back on July 14 when they sent me this letter on Aug. 7 and said they had received my application?” asked Senior, who met his wife in 2012 while visiting Toronto from Jamaica. They were married in 2013 and have a baby girl, Zurie.

“We called immigration three times and they gave us three different versions about our application,” he said.

“We are human. We can’t put our lives on hold because of some mistakes they made. We need some transparency over what happens. Someone needs to be held accountable.”

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